Greeneyed
by AgentHunter
Summary: Action/Adventure with what I hope is a comic book feel. Clint/Natasha centric. Sometimes a small thing makes you realise...
1. Chapter 1

_**Present Day**_

The shit had hit the fan again.

Natasha checked her guns, calculating the amount of ammunition she had left. Not enough to deal with this. She checked the sky, searching for the plane that was to drop off ground support, or the red flash that was Tony Stark in his Iron Man suit. Other than flying debris and the haze of dust settling, there was nothing. Glancing to her left, she watched as Clint pulled an arrow from a foe's throat, cleaning it briskly on the man's cotton shirt. He was getting very low on arrows. Clint glanced at her.

"This time it really is like Budapest all over again."

She smirked at his remark, turning her head just in time to see a flash of movement from the corner of her eye. Her left arm came up in time to block the knife to her chest, but barely managed to roll out of the way of the guy behind her with what looked like a hammer. Where had he gotten that? No time to think. Another block, this time to her left, another roll, her shoulder hitting jagged rock but there was no time for pain now. The enemy recruits had arrived before her back up.

Surrounded by incoming bodies, she couldn't see Clint, but she could hear the _twang_ of his bowstring nearby. Natasha fired point blank into the face of an oncoming assailant, pivoting on her foot to hit another on her left. The shot went low, nicking him in the abdomen instead. Her arm was losing strength. The shoulder wound was streaming blood, but the pain was non-existent now. She finished firing the gun in her left hand and dropped it to the floor, transferring the gun in her swiftly numbing right hand.

"Shit!" Clint's voice came from her left, the tone frustrated. He wasn't hurt; must be out of ammo. Natasha's awareness of her surroundings had narrowed to twenty feet all around her, and she couldn't risk another glance at the sky.

**_Seven days prior - War room_**

The Avengers Tower was almost fully operational. The debris from the fight with Loki had been removed, the walls repainted. The top four floors had been requisitioned for use by the Avengers, the remainder used by Tony for god-knows-what. In many ways the operational centres, the top two floors, were strongly reminiscent of SHIELD's, though the Stark stamp had clearly left its mark. New-Age art dotted the walls; Tony had installed a sound system in every corner. The Iron Man face stared down from every second wall, though a few had conspicuously gone missing over the last week. Pepper's touch was also present, a hint of sanity in an otherwise gadget boy's playhouse. A few plants here, a comfy chair there. There was only so much chrome and steel a person could take.

Clint leaned back in the expensive leather chair, propping his feet up on the table, ignoring the folder in front of him and watching the doors for the others to enter. Thor was still incommunicado, not expected back for a while. It had been several weeks since the near end of humanity, and people being people, the world was business as usual. The idea had been for all of them to lay low for a while, let the dust settle. But a few opportunistic souls had decided that now was the best time to start their own quest for world domination, and the Avengers had been recalled.

It hadn't been much of a vacation anyway. Less than forty-eight hours after the doorway to another galaxy closed, Clint had been on another mission. And then another. He hadn't had time to breath, to take stock of everything that had happened. He was beginning to think that was the idea.

The doors across from him swished open, and Natasha strode in, all geared up and ready to go. The purposeful stride made her short hair bounce with the movement, and her arms swung at her side like she was ready to start running. She hadn't had much to do lately, mostly coordinating between Stark and SHIELD. She was more than eager for a little action, though she would never admit it. Their work was a drug, and she insisted she was not addicted. Clint smirked. She noticed him, and moved to take the seat beside him, to his left. The table had one seat at each end, four on the other two. Back against the wall and a clear vantage point, Clint wasn't surprised when Natasha muttered "dibs next time."

Clint watched as she bent her knees and reached down with her hands to pull the chair under her. Everything she did was eye-catching in that suit. She flicked her hair over her shoulder and shifted the chair closer to the table, settling in. A whiff of vanilla reached him that caused Clint to look closer. Women seemed to have the prerogative on smelling nice, and Natasha was no exception. But when suited up and set on a mission, both of them took pains to eradicate any smell, using odourless shower products and detergent. It wouldn't help to let their targets know they were coming by smelling of fruit and flowers. Where had Natasha just been?

Close on her heels came Captain America, face mask hanging down his back and shield nowhere in sight. He nodded in their direction. Taking a seat, he picked up the manila folder and began to read. He was even more eager than Natasha. Life in the twenty-first century still felt foreign to Steve. Reality TV made no sense, and there was only so much time a guy could spend pounding a boxing bag. Any books he was interested in referenced everyday things so much that he often missed the meaning of whole paragraphs, and the idea of 'catching up' with everything was so daunting that he often didn't even feel like trying. A mission on the other hand… that he could do. That he excelled at.

Next in was doctor Banner. Dressed in shirt and chinos, he looked out of place in a room filled with see-through computer screens and glass tables. Dry-washing his hands as he looked around, he spotted Natasha and smiled. She smiled back. Steve kept his nose in the folder. Clint eyed Banner, glanced at Natasha. The display of warmth was unusual. The doctor took a seat next to her, directly across from the Captain and leaned in slightly.

"Have you seen the latest?" He indicated the folder in front of him.

"More scientists thinking they can replicate and control an x-gene serum." She glanced at Clint. "We've dealt with this… What? Six times? Seven?"

"It's a staple mission for SHIELD." Natasha chuckled. Clint watched as she turned from him back to Banner.

"The average agent cuts their teeth on these ops."

"Well, this is a little more like mutants meet the zombie apocalypse." Tony strode into the room, hand holding a fistful of grapes. He popped one into his mouth. "The test subjects aren't dead, but they are completely mindless." Taking the seat at the head of the table, he flicked open the folder, shuffled the papers around a little with his fingertips, closed it, and continued eating his grapes.

Clint flipped open his folder. The first page had the usual field de-briefing, their orders, and a nice little SHIELD symbol in the top corner. Clint skipped that page. The second was a list of minutes between an agent who had infiltrated the laboratory as an employee and SHIELD headquarters. Nothing too interesting there. Next there was a series of glossy A4 photos and satellite images. A sprawling compound, people entering and exiting buildings, repeated images of a middle-aged African-American on his cell phone. The stamps for these were on different days, but always the same time. The agent, maybe? The last image was the strangest of all. The parking lot was full of people milling about, but no cars. Barriers taller than the people had been erected around it. The cameraman had chosen the exact right moment to take the picture, capturing a man trying to climb the barricade, a spray of blood blooming behind his back. He had just been shot with what looked like a high-calibre bullet.

"So, what exactly is going on here?" Steve looked up from the photo. "Who was shooting, and why?" Clint checked the rest of the folder. Some chemical names, possible scientists involved, no real indication of what was going on.

"Fury isn't sure." Tony shrugged as everyone looked up at him in surprise. "Yeah, I know. We're kind of going in blind. Or we would be, if not for me." Tony jumped out of his chair and reached across to the centre of the table to bring up the computer screens. "That agent in the minutes? He didn't find out much. Seems this group, whoever they are, work in tight-knit cells that have no communication with each other. JARVIS managed to hack into some of the e-mails, a few internal memos, that kind-of thing. They were trying to re-create the x-gene. They added a few of their own personal tweaks. They tested it." He brought the last photo up on screen. "Now, they're shooting the test subjects. This was taken yesterday, not far from New York. The latest satellite images have all come back out of focus and grainy. No idea who or how they're doing that."

Clint reached for his own screen, flicking the current image into the corner and pulling up one on the guy with the cell phone. Details were hard to make out, but the man had broad shoulders and a shaven head. No facial hair. Clint zoomed in a little on the hand holding the cell phone. A criss-cross of white scars ran across the back of his hand. Natasha glanced over, leaning back in her seat to get a better angle of what he was looking at.

"Who's this guy the cameras seem to love so much?" Clint flicked through some of the other images, but none revealed any more details on the man. Tony brought the images up for everyone else.

"I haven't been able to find that out. I'll get JARVIS to run some facial-recognition software after he decodes the rest of the files he downloaded." Tony flicked the images to the corner of the screen and brought up an image of a double-helix with sections of it flashing red against the blue. "I think we all know what this is. The problem is; we don't know what they were doing to it. So!" Tony clapped his hands together and glanced around at everyone. "How about we go take a look?"

_**Locker Room**_

Clint finished tightening the straps on his forearm, stretching the fingers of his left hand into the finger braces and shifting his shoulders to help his suit settle. The first few moments of donning the outfit always felt a little tight. He reached into his locker and pulled out his bow case, glancing over at Natasha as she checked her guns and the release strap on their holsters. Captain America had already donned his mask and was standing in the corner, flexing the arm holding the shield.

Flicking open the latches on the case, Clint pulled out his bow, snapping his arm forward and back to open the bow to its full length. He tested the string, feeling its tautness. He loved the idea of a collapsible bow, but there was a part of him that always worried that the constant folding of the tips would cause the string to lose its tension. He was good enough to work around that if it ever happened, but he would rather the bow be at peak efficiency. Running a finger down the length of string, snapping it slightly and listening to the perfect _twang_, Clint felt satisfied that it was in good shape. He collapsed it again, looking up in time catch Natasha staring at him; at his hands. She blinked, almost seemed a little surprised. Then she caught his eye.

"Ready to go?" She closed her locker and cocked an eyebrow. It must have been his imagination. Slinging his quiver over his shoulder and tightening the thick leather strap across his chest that held it in place, Clint nodded the affirmative and followed her out into the hanger bay, the Captain close behind.

**_Enroute to Compound Alpha_**

Natasha checked her console again. ETA was eleven minutes, the sun still high in the sky and the muted colours of fields flowing by beneath them. Tony was due to arrive on scene shortly after they landed, while Bruce had elected to stay behind and help JARVIS with his work. Stealth missions weren't exactly his thing. Then again, neither were they Tony's.

Sighing, Natasha leaned back against the head rest and looked over at Clint. He was flying the plane, but it didn't require much mental input when they were cruising like this, and the far-off look on his face attested to his mind being elsewhere. After his initial awakening from Loki's brain-washing, the shadows around his eyes had quickly cleared. They were back again now with vengeance. His skin looked paler, his suit a little looser around the thighs. It was to be expected, after what had happened, but she couldn't help worrying a little. Or a lot.

Clint had been her focus the few times since joining SHIELD that she had been compromised. This was his first time, and he had no coping mechanism. Nor did he have a focus. On the surface he seemed to be dealing with it, but his physical appearance belied his easy smirks and down-to-business attitude. Natasha had no idea how to reach him. Even more worryingly, she had no idea why she wanted to so badly. They were partners, they trusted each other. His leaving her had compromised her, and his returning had her wanting to follow him around just to make sure he was okay. She fought down that urge savagely several times a day. It helped that he had hardly been around the last few weeks, and that Tony was a big enough handful to keep her mostly occupied.

Her mind was returned to the present when a shadow passed over her, and Steve leaned against the back of Clint's chair. "We nearly there?"

"Just arriving." Clint's soft, gruff voice sounded preoccupied, already focusing on touching down and the mission ahead. Natasha did the same.

**AN:** Thank you for reading. I do not own the Avengers, I'm just impatient for the next movie.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Compound Alpha**_

It was time to put his game face on. The field was not a great place to begin an internal mental dissection. Thoughts of Loki had kept him company the entire flight, images and sensations that all had dream-like qualities to them. It was getting to the stage where he wasn't sure what he had actually experienced under Loki's control, and what his over-active mind was making up. Other than his fights with Natasha and Fury, there was no one he could check with as to what happened. Mission after mission, he hadn't had the time to _feel_ anything yet. But the pictures in his mind had no off switch, and he lay awake at night trying to sort fact from fiction. He couldn't begin to deal with what happened until he knew what he had and had not done. He had hit a mental impasse, and it was leaving him drained.

_Deep breath._

Clint slowly breathed in, all the way to his stomach, and then released a measured breath. An extended blink allowed him the second to create the blank grey sheet in his mind, with the single black mark in the middle. He focused on that mark as he unhooked his harness and rose from the pilot's chair. Eyes distant, emotions slowly fading to grey, Clint didn't notice Natasha watching him as he reached without looking for his bow-case, took out the bow and strapped his quiver to his back. The black mark got smaller and smaller as his breath slowed and his muscles relaxed into the deadly calmness of a relaxed bowstring. His attention snapped to as the back of the plane opened and a gust of warm wind blew dust into the compartment.

Rogers jumped out before the ramp had finished descending. Clint glanced back at Natasha, waiting for her to look at him, before jogging down the ramp behind him. Squinting as he looked around, Clint wished he had brought his sunglasses. It was one of those days when the sun seemed to reflect off the air itself, making everything brightly yellow. The dust in the air when he inhaled caused a reflexive cough, and he turned back to the plane intent on grabbing a scarf when a wad of cloth was thrown at him. He nodded his thanks to Natasha and wrapped the scarf around the lower part of his face and nose as she did the same. It felt like they were out in the desert, even if the heat was that of a blistering day in New York. Time to take stock.

They had landed just outside the barricaded parking lot, and they quickly set about pulling down enough of the wooden crates and sheets of metal to clear a three foot section of fence with barbed wire at the top. Looking through the chain links, the car park was now completely deserted- no cars, no bodies, though the Captain gestured towards what looked like blood spatter on the other side of the chain. A seven foot high fence was nothing they couldn't handle, and Clint jumped at the fence, grasping the bar just below the barbed wire and pulling with his elbows to allow him to somersault over the top. Natasha landed gracefully beside him, crouched low and gun in hand. Bow unslung and arrow held loosely against it, the three of them started a swift search of the parking lot as they made their way to an emergency exit that had been left ajar.

Empty Starbucks cups, loose sandwich wrappers and ground out cigarette butts littered the ground, slowly piling against the edge of the fence. Oil stains made it hard to pick out just how much blood had been spilled, but that wasn't a priority right now. Clint checked his surroundings as he moved, watching the roof-line, the corners, that shady area under the only tree. As he neared the door he slowed, placing his booted foot against the emergency door and reaching down to pick up the plank of wood that had kept it open. A piece of flesh with long brown hair attached to it clung to the corner of the plank, with blood dried in the grooves. He waved it in front of the Captain before throwing it to the side and opening the door fully, arrow drawn.

The interior was lit dimly, the air buzzing with flies. Many had died in the lighting fixtures, the cause of the dimness. Clint was glad of the scarf for a very different reason now. He wasn't squeamish, but the feel of the flies buzzing against his skin and crawling through his hair was still very uncomfortable. He focused on that black mark again.

Rogers took point, with Clint at the rear. They did quick scans of several rooms along the corridor. Nothing interesting in them- supply rooms, offices, a ladies bathroom. The end of the corridor took two branches. Rogers took the left, Natasha and Clint took the right. The flies were worse here, and they began to see scraped paint and blood stains on the wall. There was a smell of decay and bleach in the air.

The first door on their left looked like a dining room, rotting food dotting some of the tables. More offices. Further down were a set of double doors. Clint moved in front of Natasha to open the door, so that she could enter ahead of him. Braced against the open door with his arrow aimed over her shoulder, his eyes immediately began to water as a suffocating wave of decay rolled out past him. Blinking to clear his vision, he moved right as Natasha moved left. It was a large work space, a lab. Nothing they hadn't expected. Bloated bodies sat slumped against computer monitors. The corpse of a woman looked to have had her eye gouged out by a microscope eye piece. Every corpse had suffered a violent death, from blunt force trauma to blood loss.

Clint rolled an office chair out of the way as he tapped at a few keys to wake the computer from standby mode. A black screen with a logo flashing ANTF in white letters came up, along with the usual icons of recycling bin and internet browser. A quick run through the folders showed that everything had been deleted. Half-heartedly checking the recycling bin, Clint hung his head as that too came up empty. Without much hope, he checked a few more computers. They had all been wiped. He was rifling through desk drawers to no avail when Natasha called him over.

"Clint, you need to see this." She was leaning over something by a bank of steel sinks. He moved to her side, leaning over her shoulder. When she moved her head slightly, he got that whiff of vanilla again, and although it was impossible, for a moment it was the only thing he could smell. The awful surroundings disappeared, and he wondered again why she was going on a mission smelling that good…

"Clint, are you listening?" Reality crashed around him, and he looked down at what she was standing over. "These papers were wedged underneath one of the sinks. Read them." Clint read from over her shoulder, not quite touching her, but with no intention of moving. Take opportunities where you can get them.

At first he didn't see what she saw; a series of names with a date and time stamped beside them, all within the last two months. Some of the names sounded vaguely familiar, and he went from speed reading to paying full attention. There were several SHIELD operatives on here, some retired, others current. He didn't recognize most names, but even one member of SHIELD was a cause for concern. It wasn't until he got to the last page that he realized what had caught Natasha's attention. There were several comments on progress, indicating that the previous names were test subjects. Everything had been typed, but there was a handwritten signature at the end of the page. Large loops and flamboyantly written was the name T. Granger.

He caught Natasha's eye. They were almost cheek to cheek. The look in her eyes was determined, the set of her jaw annoyed. Fury was in for an unpleasant conversation when he met the Widow. Anyone else would also be in for several broken fingers.

"Hawkeye! Widow!"

* * *

Natasha spun on her heel at the sound of Rogers' voice, her shoulder brushing against Clint's. He was slightly slower to react. She noted it for later. Jogging out of the room, he was on her heels as she made her way down the corridor, slowing slightly as she scanned rooms for the Captain. With his outfit, he wasn't difficult to spot. Halfway down, she stepped into a room that felt like a walk-in refrigerator and looked like a morgue. Steve was standing over an autopsy table with a defrosting Chitauri. Several of the gill-like ridges down the sides of its head and neck had been carefully cut away, and there was an obvious Y-incision on its chest.

"Where the hell did they get a Chitauri?" Clint's voice echoed hollowly in the room. Natasha pulled off a glove and looked around, eventually spying a box of disposable gloves. Slipping one on, she gestured Steve aside and stepped up to the table. She began to pull back the cut flaps of the creature's chest.

"What are you doing?" When she didn't reply, Steve looked to Clint. "What is she doing?" Clint merely raised his eyebrows. Steve groaned and twisted away when Natasha slid her hand into the open cavity. Feeling around, she wasn't exactly sure what she was looking for. Withdrawing her hand, she snapped off the glove and shrugged.

"If this thing is anything close to human, it's missing a few organs."

"Missing?" Clint took a step closer to study the body. "Missing as in it never had them? Or missing as in removed?"

"Removed."

"Ah." He leaned over a mottled hand and turned it. "Is it just me, or do these look like rope marks?" Natasha looked down at the hand closest to her. A darker line of skin wound around its wrist. She then checked its ankles. The lines were there too. Clint sounded what she was thinking. "Why the hell would they need to tie up a dead alien?"

"You need to see this, too." Steve led them out of the room and down the corridor until they got to the end. He opened the door to a stairwell and led them down to a garage that looked to span the entire compound. Close to the stairs were what remained of the quinjet they had crashed during the fight in Manhattan. Steve looked back at them. "We need to send a team in here."

_**Avengers' Tower**_

Natasha was in the communal living room. Sinking into the leather sofa in yoga pants and a black tank top, she balanced her netbook against one knee and a mug of green tea against the other. Her back was leaning against the arm rest, her feet on the cushions. Sipping the still too hot drink, she began reviewing the files that SHIELD had collated so far. Tony had informed Fury of what they had found, and then Fury had sent in a cleanup crew and a group of technicians. Reports were coming in slowly, though so far it was nothing they had not figured out for themselves. She was eager to work, but she closed the files and brought up her internet browser. Tony had made a big deal the week before on how they all needed to appreciate their down time. Natasha was willing to try, a fact that would have shocked just a few months ago.

A few sips later, Clint walked into the room. He was wearing track pants and t-shirt, his hair sticking up at all angles and wet from his shower. He had a book at his side, a long finger marking his place. Sitting on the couch with her, he was close enough that she could feel the heat of his thigh against her toes. Natasha flexed them, brushing lightly against his leg. He looked at her, then the netbook in her lap.

"Anything good?" His voice was gruff and tired sounding. She studied his pale face a moment before responding. The bruised purple around his eyes held her attention. He stared pointedly at her.

"Siamese chimpanzees were born in a Hong Kong zoo just an hour ago." Clint blinked at her.

"Bored much?"

"Extremely. I don't know what to do with all this free time."

"Browsing the internet as a form of entertainment might not be a good idea, Tasha." He waited until she looked him in the eyes to say; "The stupidity on there might cause you to go on a rampage." She smirked and shoved him with a foot. "I'm serious. You could work on a Darwin Awards Execution Squad." Natasha just shook her head. Clint opened his book and settled down to read. Checking him over the top of her netbook, she typed 'Darwin Awards' into Google. She was reading a Wiki page when Clint's chest was suddenly pressed against the length of her calf and he was looking at her screen. He huffed out a laugh, and she pressed her palm against his face to push him away again. Still chuckling, he returned to his book.

They settled into companionable silence. In-between browsing and checking for new reports, she glanced over at Clint. His eyes were half-lidded. He had been staring at the same page for a while now. A few minutes later, she watched as he shook his head slightly and blinked. He turned the page.

It was strange. Natasha had known Clint for just under eight years. Eight years since he put down his bow and offered her another choice. They hadn't been partners all of the time since then- it had taken Fury awhile to realise that the only one she could work with was Clint. When she had realized it herself, she had become antagonistic and exceptionally cold towards the archer. The idea of a partnership was not something that had ever interested her. Clint had just huffed that laugh at her and watched her back regardless. A couple of missions later, and she had had to admit they worked well together; she didn't even mind his company. Being partnered aside, the majority of their missions were still separate. Clint was a soldier, she was a spy. They could play the opposite roles when they had to, but SHIELD liked to keep them to their strengths. Overlapping missions were rare.

Any form of downtime was even rarer. She had rarely seen him in civilian clothes unless it was work related. She didn't know his favourite food, or his parents' names. She had never heard the full story of how he had joined SHIELD, or where he grew up. He knew as little about her. Their partnership wasn't based on sharing memories. They worked without needing to bond outside of work. Sharing this quiet, both relaxed and freshly showered, nothing threatening about to happen- this they had never done.

Natasha had to admit, it felt comfortable. That scared her a little bit.

**AN:** Thank you for reading, and for all the reviews/alerts. I made a minor spelling edit to the first chapter. I'm still getting a feel for writing their characters, and setting up the story, so thank you for being patient with me. On a side note, is my writing style kind of clinical? I get that feeling sometimes.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Six days prior – Early hours of the morning**_

_The show was over._

_They had been in this town for three days; three days of scorching weather with not a drop of moisture in the air. Three days of little audience and less applause. Clint couldn't understand why they were staying in the area. Mr Carson had told them all that they were staying another two days, and the camp had gone up in an uproar. Mrs Felice had refused to leave her caravan come show time, and as Clint passed by later that night he had to look away. Mr Carson banged on her door again, shouting for her to come out. Clint didn't want to end up with extra work just for catching the carnival owner's eye._

_Besides, he was looking for someone._

_Barney had been acting strange. Well, maybe it was better to say _stranger_. The kid had been weird since day one, and the last year or two he had gotten really moody as well. But ever since they had arrived in this town, Barney had been shifty. He wouldn't catch Clint's eye, wouldn't eat with him. This wasn't so unusual, but Clint felt like something was different this time. Barney was actively avoiding him. What kind of big brother would Clint be if he couldn't tell when something was up with his little brother?_

_The sun had disappeared from the sky, but some of its glow could still be seen on the horizon. It left the world in a kind of purple haze. The moon was just off full, the odd star out. To the west, the light pollution of the town was a vivid orange colour, the normally muted light seeming to collide and strengthen with the last light of the dying sun. It was still hot, the black shirt that Clint wore with his outfit plastered to his sweaty back. The tight black trousers chafed from the heat, and Clint longed to return to the trailer he shared with his brother and the two Chinese acrobats, slip on a pair of shorts and dunk himself in the horses' water barrel. Anything to cool off._

_The caravans were all set in parallel lines behind the large red and blue carnival tent, away from the entrance and the prying eyes of customers. A few cats lounged on porch steps, and motion-sensor porch lights lit up as Clint jogged past. Tino, the fire eater, sat on a deck chair with his pipe and shouted after Clint. Clint had been with the Carson Carnival of Travelling Wonders since he was eight and Barney six, and from the beginning, he had been begging Tino to teach him to swallow fire and spit it out again, a child's' glee at danger and the forbidden. The old Spaniard had always refused. Then one night, a month after Clint had turned sixteen, when both Jacques the Swordsman and Trickshot – the man's real name was Chisholm, but no one ever used it- were away from the camp, this changed. Clint had a rare evening free from training, and late in the evening Tino had called Clint out of his caravan, and in heavily accented Spanish began to teach the young man the basics of fire swallowing. Unlike his training sessions with his two mentors, these evenings were fun. He looked forward to the rare occasions, but tonight, something in his gut felt wrong._

_Clint started running._

_The air was dry in his throat, and it wasn't long before he was panting. His feet threw up little clouds of dust, and several roustabouts shouted at him to help them clean up. Ignoring everyone, it wasn't long before Clint reached the end of the caravans. Barren fields stretched out before him. His stomach felt sick now, a roiling feeling deep inside of him. Unsure of what to do next, Clint scanned the horizon, hoping for something to spark an idea. He had no idea where this feeling of dread was coming from, but it was something he had felt before, a long time ago. Images of Clint a year or two older than he was now flashed through his head. What was he..?_

_The sound of something metal clattering to the ground made him forget his train of thought as he turned towards the noise. It came from over near Jacques' caravan. Clint felt his heart stutter. While he was running, night had fully descended, and the porch lights around him had switched themselves off. The only sound now was that of his ragged breath and thudding heart beat. Whole body tense, Clint made his way around the side of the mobile home to the entrance. Had Jacques been at the show tonight? A drop of sweat stung his eyes as he tried to remember. Normally after a show, as the main attraction Jacques would stay with the crowd and sign autographs, pose for pictures and end every sentence with a booming laugh. In this town though…_

_A muffled thud originated from inside, the thin walls making it seems as though it came from right beside Clint. Swallowing, he tried to call out, croaked, and had to clear his throat to make any sound come out. The dread was crushing him._

"_Jacques?" There was no reply. Clint climbed the few steps to the door and knocked haltingly. Again, nothing. Deep breath. Form the grey sheet and aim for the dot. The little black mark wavered and made him feel queasy. He couldn't focus on it, or calm his mind._

Thud

_Clint screwed his eyes shut tightly, grabbed the doorknob and turned it slowly. It resisted at first, almost seeming to sense his trepidation. With a suddenness that caused Clint to lurch forward and open his eyes, the door swung inwards._

_At first, the light dazzled him._

_When his eyes adjusted, he wished they hadn't._

_A pool of dark coagulated blood, almost black, pooled at his feet. Recoiling, he tried to back away; the soles of his shoes stuck to the blood, almost causing him to topple backwards. The puddle stretched into the room, the space seeming strangely large and out of proportion to the size of the caravan. Ten feet away, miles away, a figure knelt hunched over a body. Feet that had been stuck just a moment before began to move of their own volition, squelching in the blood that seemed to come from a dozen people, not just one corpse. Closer and closer, taking an eternity, Clint approached the two figures._

_Lying there, face turned towards him in a black pool and with his mouth open in a silent scream, lay Barney. His bright blonde hair was stained a dark brown from sweat and blood, his blue eyes filmed over and staring right at Clint. Part of his neck was torn away, the grisly mess still throbbing and pulsing life's blood, impossible though Clint knew it to be. Clint choked, and the sound caused the figure hunched over his brother's corpse to turn towards him._

_His eyes an unearthly blue, blood smeared around his mouth from where he had bitten a chunk out of Barney's throat, an older Clint grinned with a too large mouth at his young counterpart._

Clint woke up screaming.

Sitting upright in his bed, sheets tangled around his body, he panicked. _Oh god_, he was _trapped!_ Trapped in his head, physically restrained, still dreaming with his eyes wide open; Clint choked on his gasps. A heart already beating rapidly began to reach dangerous levels. The gasps became screams again, and he struggled to free himself, cognitively unaware of what he was struggling against.

_Crack_

Clint's mind cleared, even as his head throbbed with blinding pain. His vision white around the edges, he found himself on the floor of his room, sheets mostly untangled except around his legs. Lifting his head, a wave of nausea overcame him, and he struggled to his feet, only years of training his balance preventing him from tripping as his bare feet caught in the sheets. Staggering, he barely made it to the toilet bowl of his en suite bathroom before losing the contents of his stomach. Catching his breath, another wave hit him, then another. Nothing but bile and acid was left in his stomach now, but his insides heaved until he was left dry retching and shivering on the tiles.

Clint thinks he might have blacked out for a while when he next opens his eyes. The bathroom floor is cold, the skin of his bare side chilled, but the tiles help to cool his head. He feels empty, the kind of empty you get when you haven't eaten in several days, when your insides are just about ready to start eating themselves. His throat is dry and sore from screaming and getting sick. His head feels like someone has been kicking it around. A dark smear from the corner of his eye causes him to rise up onto an elbow. Blood has smeared the ground beneath his head. Reaching up to his temple, his fingers come away bright red. He had clipped the corner of his bedside cabinet falling out of bed.

Slowly rising to his feet, Clint closed his eyes at the dizziness that seemed to go from his head to his limbs. He leaned against the sink and turned on the cold tap. Leaning his head down to drink, the pain makes him think better of it, and he uses his hands to cup water to his mouth. It was an unsatisfactory way of drinking, and giving up, he tottered over to his bed and collapsed.

His mind is mercifully blank.

An hour of sleeping with his eyes open, and suddenly the images of his dream come back to him. Restlessness strikes his body full force, the kind where you _have_ to move because to stay still _hurts_. Moving slowly, he pulls on a hoodie he left lying on a chair. Before he can think about it, he picks up his collapsible bow and leaves his room. He can't wait for the elevator, never can, and so he climbs the stairs to the top floor, making his way out onto the balcony where the battle with Loki had taken place. He pushes the thought firmly from his mind.

Clint leans against the wall, back to the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him. He curls in on himself, hugging the reassuring weight and feel of the bow to his chest. No one is here, and to be honest, he'll take whatever comfort he can get. The bow represented a lot for Clint. It was the epitomic symbol of every major event of his life. Feet already frozen, he focuses on his bow, reminding himself of what it means, focusing on those memories, better than the ones trying to claw their way into his heart.

When Clint was six, his parents died in a car crash. He can't remember where he and his brother were when this happened- a babysitter maybe. His clearest memory is of the day he was take to the orphanage. Given a black bag, he was told to pack some clothes and maybe a toy or two. Whatever he could fit in the bag, which was all he could take with him of his old life. Then he was herded into an office, given a case number, assigned a bed, and became nothing more than a toy on a shelf. Waiting, with all the other children, for someone to come and take him away, so he could once again start a life. In the orphanage, he felt as if he was waiting to breathe again, and this angered him. He hadn't understood much about death; all he knew was that once you died, you couldn't do anything anymore. He wasn't quite sure what that meant, but it sounded a lot like how he was currently living.

The orphanage was death to him.

Two years later, the boys at the orphanage were treated to a night at a carnival. Years later, Clint can't remember much of what he saw that night, but he remembered seeing two young Chinese boys, not much older than him, performing what seemed to him impossible feats as they flung themselves off poles and used each other to change course in mid-air. That night, Clint made a decision.

The carnival was life.

He hadn't meant to bring Barney. Barney liked the orphanage, had made loads of friends. Nevertheless, Barney followed him that night, and wouldn't leave his side. Of course, when they got there, trying to sneak past roustabouts and stow away aboard a caravan, Barney had tripped, and they had been caught. Looking back on it now, the events that followed were surreal. Mr Carson and a few other performers had been arguing over who should bring them back to the orphanage, when Clint had spotted a bow leaning against a water barrel, oil cloth and several arrows beside it. The adults' attention focused on each other, Clint had wandered over to the bow and picked it up. He had read stories of archers, fantasy stories, and though he had always preferred the swordsmen, the guys in the thick of the fighting, he couldn't resist this chance.

Early in his life, back when his parents had still been alive, teachers had told his parents he was a natural athlete. Like many talented athletes, he was good at watching a person's body as they did something- kicked a ball, swung a racquet- and with a little practice, a little trial and error, could move their own body in a way that perfectly emulated what they had seen. He had watched the Trickmaster and had been wowed and amazed like all the other boys. He remembered how the man had stood; feet apart, hands on bow relaxed but firm, aiming with his shoulder, hips angled just so.

Clint didn't pick up an arrow. He just took the stance to the best of his ability, the bow almost as tall as he was, and pulled the string taught. He adjusted, shifting his feet, his knees and elbows until something clicked in his head and the position felt right. Sighting at an invisible target, the shadow that fell across him shocked him into nearly dropping the bow. A tall man with curly brown hair stood before, the Trickmaster. Hands on hips, he was looking at Clint appraisingly. Expecting trouble, Clint flinched as the big man moved, but he only moved past him, towards the other adults.

That night, Clint and Barney were welcomed into the Carson Carnival of Travelling Wonders, and Clint was slowly groomed as the protégé of one of the best archers in the country. It was a decision that made him who he was today, and that killed his brother.

Or Clint had killed his brother. The Clint with the eerie blue eyes and the foreign mind inside his head and peace in his heart and blood on his hands and freedom from freedom and the bliss of being controlled of not having to think of just following orders and it's okay it's okay to kill 'cause he has no mind of his own and it's so free so free everything is so fre…

Clint shudders. Barney had died by his hands. He knows that. But it hadn't happened at the carnival; he hadn't torn his brother's throat open with his teeth. He hadn't even known who he was killing, until he removed the balaclava his brother was wearing and realised that Barney had become the criminal Jacques had tried to turn him into. His first kill, and _oh God_ this train of thought was no better than his dream.

Clint sat out in the cold, and watched the city sleep. Clutching his bow to his chest, he stayed to watch the city wake.

**AN: Clint's history is loosely based on canon. Thank you for reading.**


	4. Chapter 4

_**Six days prior – Morning**_

Natasha woke up just before her alarm went off, her internal clock so used to waking at this time. The room felt cool, the day promised cold even as the sun was just peeking over the top of New York's taller buildings. Natasha had fallen asleep with the curtains open, and cursed herself for getting soft. Lack of sleep was no excuse, nor the supposed safety of Tony's tower. Stretching, she dressed in work out gear quickly and prepared herself for her morning training session. She and Clint had decided to make a habit out of it while they stayed at the tower, to ensure their skills did not slacken. The rest of the Avengers spent time training too, especially Steve, but this was between just the two of them, no super powers attached. It was physical, and heat, and they both came out with bruises and sore muscles, the way a spar should be.

She jogged up the stairs to where a series of training rooms were situated, entering the one most like an actual gym. Training mats covered the floor, with gym equipment pressed against the walls, leaving a wide space for sparring. Natasha settled herself on the mats to begin warming up, the routine of it relaxing her muscles and clearing the fog from a restless night's sleep. When she had finished there was still no sign of Barton, and Natasha frowned. They usually arrived within seconds of each other. When fifteen minutes went by, she went in search of him.

His room was on the floor above hers, along with Steve and Bruce's. She knocked on his door, but didn't wait for an answer. She knew his code, and typed it into the lock. The door opened, and it took Natasha a moment to adjust to the gloom. The bed was empty, of both Clint and sheets. The curtains were pulled, but the bathroom door directly opposite her was open. It was her first time in this room, but she didn't bother looking around for personal effects. A glimpse of white drew her to the other side of the bed, where the bed linen was left in a heap. She moved into the bathroom, which smelled of vomit, and saw the small pool of blood on the floor by the toilet. Turning, looking for its source, she spotted the bedside table and the blood on a corner. Her heart was in her throat, but she quickly quashed the panic. He was fine.

Natasha left the room hurriedly, asking JARVIS as she went for Clint's location.

"Top floor, Ms Romanoff."

Natasha headed for the stairs.

When she reached the lounge, she ignored the couches and the bar; she knew he would be outside. Sure enough, she could see him huddled against the wall with his back to her and the glass, leaning against the stone and looking very small. Natasha approached cautiously, but made sure to make sound. She let the glass door leading outside slide noisily against its bearings and stepped towards Clint.

Knees drawn up and arms crossed against himself, bow against chest, his expression was blank, eyes half-lidded and staring at the city below. With his bare feet and pale skin, Natasha had never seen him so vulnerable. She could see no sign of injury, but she could already feel the cold seeping through her clothes. How long had he been out here? Taking a seat next to him with her back against the window, Natasha waited for him to say something. He was so still…

Without thought, she reached up a hand and pressed her knuckles against his cheek. His skin was frozen, but he did turn towards her, surprise in his eyes. Natasha quickly withdrew her hand.

"There's blood in your room."

"I hit my head." His voice was rough, sore sounding. He turned his head to rest against the wall again. Several minutes ticked by.

"You missed our sparring session."

"I'd guessed." Natasha licked her lips, an odd feeling flickering in her chest. Was that hurt? Why would she feel that? He'd assumed she had only noticed something was wrong because…

_Ah_

Natasha felt like she was floundering. It was not something she experienced often. The few times she had needed it, it was Clint who had calmed her inner turmoil with his calm words and dry wit. She had no idea what to do, could only guess at what was wrong. Loki, of course. It had to be something to do with him, with his brain washing, but there were so many problems that came from the loss of control that it wasn't easy to pinpoint where the current problem lay. Natasha realised unless it was related to SHIELD, she wouldn't know where to start anyway.

That pang in her chest again.

"Talk to me." The words came out forceful, annoyed. Not at all what she had intended, but she was lost. Clint just glanced at her. "If you want to." That came out softer, and he sighed.

"I was dreaming about the first time I got red in my ledger." He paused, not looking at her. "I killed my little brother." Natasha hadn't known that, but she didn't react to the news. She had killed family too. "I didn't know it was him at first. In my dreams, I _know_ it's him. And I _revel_ in taking his life. In every life I've taken." Natasha began to see the problem. She knew Clint didn't enjoy killing. It was part of his job, but he didn't _enjoy_ it. He made sure to go into every kill with his eyes wide open, to see what he was doing, to acknowledge he was ending a life. Only then would he take the shot. He had a certain skill set; he used it.

He never used it lightly.

In many ways, Natasha understood. She didn't enjoy death, even if she was good at it. She didn't pretty it up with grandiose words and _The Greater Good_. It was ugly, and necessary and she had shut herself off to it long ago. So had Clint. But these dreams of his must be unravelling the careful patchwork of _it's my job_ and _my reasons were sound, this needed to be done_ that surrounded every kill.

His trust in himself was fracturing.

Clint seemed to have finished explaining. In all honesty, just that much was more than she had expected. Clint had never been good with words. Nor had she. It was one of the things that connected them, so Natasha decided they were done with them. Action was always better.

Rising to her feet, Natasha held out her hand and waited for Clint to notice. When he did, her chest tightened again at the shock in his eyes, the slight rise of eyebrows. Shifting stiffly, he took her hand in his, his skin cold and shaking slightly. He tottered a little, the crouched position he had been in having caused his blood to flow to his legs sluggishly. Pulling him behind her, Natasha led the way inside, closing the door behind them. She noticed blood on the temple that had been pressed to the wall. Against the red, his face looked even paler, the bruises under his eyes a deeper purple.

Saying nothing, Natasha led him down the stairs and into his room, pushing him in the direction of the shower and picking up his sheets. She dumped them in a corner to be washed later, listening to the sound of the shower and a door opening out in the hall. It was just after seven.

Every room in the tower had a first aid kit- the first place Natasha looked was the bedside table, where she kept her own in her room. Pulling it out, she waited as the shower stopped and the bathroom door opened. She moved over to the window and glanced out through a crack in the drapes, giving him some privacy to change. A minute later, she heard the creak of bed springs and turned to face him. In jeans and t-shirt, he looked better than he had before. Why did the sight of him sitting on his bed in bare feet feel so intimate?

Natasha ignored the errant thought and moved to his side, pulling an antibacterial swab from the kit to clean the gash starting at his hairline. The wound was clean, and had stopped bleeding long ago. She pressed a small square plaster over it, and if her thumb brushed against his temple unnecessarily, neither of them mentioned it.

"Thanks, Tasha." His voice was still rough.

"Any time." Both of them felt raw, so Natasha packed up the kit and left to go take her own shower.

The day was just beginning.

_**Afternoon – One of Tony's (many) labs**_

His head still hurt, and Clint had the feeling things were about to get worse as he watched Banner and Tony prep a series of screens to show them all their 'discoveries'. Swear to God, watching the two was like watching a couple of kids with free reign in a toy store. Their eyes had that light of obsession in them, and the two had hardly left the lab since yesterday. They looked exhausted but happy, and the combination was completely alien to Clint. Weren't the two mutually exclusive?

Rogers sat on a stool, fiddling with a device that looked like a cross between a pencil and something a dentist would use. Clint slouched beside him, the room too bright for his eyes. He leaned slightly towards Steve.

"Think we should have brought a dictionary?" Steve smiled slightly. It was good to know he wasn't the only one who felt lost in these situations. Natasha entered a moment later and stood beside Clint with her hip resting against a lab bench. As she had walked past, he hadn't notice any smell. Yesterday was still bothering him, and his attention was caught when Bruce smiled at Natasha again, and she returned it. The bottom fell out of his stomach, and Clint shook himself mentally. _Idiot_.

Tony clapped his hands together with glee, his smile growing bigger as all eyes turned to him.

"Right, while all of you were dreaming electric sheep, Bruce and I have gone over the files and e-mails we managed to scavenge from that facility. I, of course, was right, and this was all to do with the x-gene. Mixed with a little chitauri biology."

"I thought they were machines?" Steve glanced at Bruce as if to make sure Tony wasn't pulling his leg.

"Of course they're machines! Biological machines! Like us, except not really like us at all. A few things in common, though nothing really workable and hence the amazing cock-up those scientists have now left with us to clean up." Tony pressed an icon on the large screen beside him and a host of chemical symbols scrolled across the screen. "Bearing in mind I only started reading about xeno-biology last night, I still feel I have the general idea down.

"The chitauri have a kind of hive-mind thing going on. I'm not entirely sure how much free will they have, but these scientists were hoping to isolate what ever caused them to listen to single voice and use that for the x-gene test subjects. Bruce and I haven't quite worked out what exactly went wrong yet-" Bruce raised a hand and opened his mouth to speak, but when Tony kept going he just smiled and shook his head. "-but this mutant mind control experiment went very wrong and ended up leaving the subjects with very little mind at all. There seems to have been some success, though, in that the x-gene altered them slightly, though no where near as much as in regular mutants, and they seem to be following a group mentality-"

"Hold on a second." Clint squeezed the bridge of his nose. "There was no one there. A few corpses, some blood. You sound as if these people are still out there somewhere."

"They are, in a different compound. Didn't I say that?" Clint's grey eyes watched him flatly, and Tony abruptly remembered the man was dangerous. Not that he was scared, just that maybe this was a fact not to forget. Natasha radiated _assassin_. Clint blended in better, but that didn't make him any less dangerous. "SHIELD isolated some chatter on the airwaves. Apparently, the test subjects were rounded up and moved. Those that hadn't been shot. We're still working on locating the next compound, but we do have a job for our resident assassins." He handed a small envelop to each of them. Natasha cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Someone's getting very professional." She turned the envelope over in her hands. Clint leaned over to stage whisper: "He was watching a Mission Impossible marathon the other night." Natasha smirked, and Clint patted a confused Rogers on the back, muttering 'I'll show you later'. Tony cleared his throat, and bowed with a flourish of his hands.

"Your mission, if you choose to accept." Bruce snorted into his hand, the sound seeming to surprise him. Clint just rolled his eyes and tore open the envelope. The sheet of paper inside listed an address in Brooklyn. A glance at Natasha's page showed a different address, this one in Queens.

"Ms Romanoff, that is the address of the agent SHIELD had infiltrate this group. He went missing yesterday. Check his place, see what you can see. As for you, Barton, that is the address registered to a Mr Modesitt, the man we saw on the phone in the photos. He has a number of aliases, a criminal record as long as the Hulk's temper is short, and a degree in micro biology. Check him out." Bruce rose from where he had been sitting and brought up a different image, this time a picture of the garage Steve had discovered under the compound.

"The downed quinjet was just the tip of the iceberg in this place." His soft voice contrasted with Tony's nonchalance. "We had assumed that various allotted government agencies had taken all of the alien debris from New York to their own labs, but there was great deal of the technology and a body of one of those flying worm things under the compound. We're still trying to work out what they were hoping to gain from these things, and also how they got them in the first place."

"All in all, we have a lot to do." Tony smiled at the prospect, his scientific mind on fire. "Even you, Captain." He handed an envelope to Steve. Steve opened it, pulling out a scrap of notebook paper with a list of caffeinated beverages on it. "Anyone else want to place an order?"

**AN: **Don't get me wring; I love Steve. He'll get payback eventually. Thank you for reading, and a special thanks to everyone who alerted/reviewed.


	5. Chapter 5

_**An apartment block in Brooklyn – Afternoon**_

Clint sat in the grey Dodge Neon he usually kept stored away in an overnight garage. He rarely needed to drive, but the non-descript car was useful at times. A cup of black coffee in hand, the smell drifting through the car along with that of hot upholstery and the usual fumes of the traffic going by, Clint leaned his arm out of the window and continued to watch the entrance to the apartment building of one Jonathan Modessitt. The sun reflected off the windows and concrete; anyone wearing white seeming to be surrounded by a halo of light. New York in summer, not a day he'd choose to do a stakeout. Adjusting his sunglasses, sweat beading under the bridge of the purple shades and his temples already damp, Clint forced the pounding of his head to a corner of his mind.

Several people had entered the building in the hour he had been watching it. The building was just shy of decrepit from the outside, the interior looking better. It was the kind of place those of middling income could rent- Small spaces, relatively clean, not too many break-ins. Clint took a sip of his coffee as he watched a young woman with six dogs try to wrestle all of them in through the front doors- these weren't little dogs. The scalding coffee burnt its way down his throat; maybe today hadn't been a day for hot beverages, but he was hoping the caffeine would help with the headache. Dogs and woman inside, nothing to watch, Clint's mind drifted back to this morning.

It had surprised him when Natasha showed up that morning to check on him. It really shouldn't have. His comment to her had been a little cruel. Of course she would check up on him; they were partners. But the mental state he had been in was too self-indulgent. He had been feeling alone, and a part of him revelled in it, in the freedom of crushing loneliness and he hadn't wanted to acknowledge Natasha's presence in his life. Who said angst was for teens? Clint snorted. Most of his life had been stuck in his head, nothing but his thoughts for company, and this whole Avengers gig was changing that. They had down time; he was getting to read all those books that had piled up in his head, he was getting to relax. He was getting to see sleepy, warm Natasha at night as she curled up on the couch…

A lifetime of solitude, interrupted occasionally by Natasha and Coulson, was a hard thing to let go of. He was enjoying the team moments, he was, but it was still so foreign. And it was changing the dynamic between him and Natasha. Most of their communication had been in silent understanding; now they were getting the opportunity to talk, to share. They had never done that, but instinctively knowing that the other's past was dark, that they shared a life of loss and had both removed themselves from everyday feeling, what need was there to speak of memories? They understood each other without having to dredge up the past. As for this burgeoning physical closeness… Shoulder nudging, knee nudging, hand-to-hand combat; that had been the extent of their touching. They were both too private for casual embraces. Clint would never forget the look on Natasha's face when they returned to Stark towers after the Manhattan incident. Pepper Potts had launched herself at Tony, and after wards she had gone over to Natasha and embraced her briefly. The Black Widow's eyebrows had almost breached her hairline, and her hands had been held loosely at her side. Pats on the back, shoulder gripping- hell, Thor had tried wrestling with Steve the night before he returned to Asguard. Touching was becoming a thing among the group, but the idea of touching Natasha was a place best avoided. If he concentrated his hand still tingled from the warmth of hers...

Clint was fifteen years old again.

Bumping his head lightly against the head rest, Clint focused once again on the door. It was another three hours before the target showed, dressed in a brown suit with a black leather brief case. As Modesitt walked towards his building, Clint exited his car. Wearing a navy shirt over his t-shirt, Clint checked the glock in its holster under his right arm. The shirt was open and loose enough to hide the bulge, and Clint quickly locked his car and made his was across the busy road to the entrance, opening the door ahead of the guy and entering the stair well. He left the door open a crack, and when the guy in the suit entered the elevator, Clint legged it up the stairs to the fifth floor, reaching it just as the elevator dinged open. Sunglasses still on, Clint walked briskly up behind the man as he was unlocking his apartment door. Sliding up behind his target, Clint trapped the man's throat with his elbow, blocking off his air way long enough for him to collapse to the ground, unconscious. Checking the hallway, Clint opened the unlocked door and dragged the dead-weight in behind him. Finally, he took off his sunglasses.

The apartment was sparsely furnished, with cardboard boxes near the entrance that were still unpacked. Leaning down to pick up the briefcase, Clint moved into the kitchen-slash-living room area and set it on a breakfast table. It wasn't locked; reams of paper were inside, covered in gibberish. Probably a code of some kind; Clint would leave it to the science brothers. Moving around the room, he searched through the drawers, finding a .22 and a small clear box full of syringes. There was nothing else of note. He then made his way to the laptop taking pride of place in the living room. It was password protected. Clint took the USB stick Tony had provided out of his pocket and inserted it into a port. Leaving that to do its work, Clint did a final sweep, this time entering the bedroom and bathroom. The sleeping area was clear, but he found another box of syringes under the bathroom sink, this time full of a cloudy liquid. Clint pocketed one, and went back to the computer. Files downloaded, he exited the apartment, then the building. Time to get this information back to Stark.

Pausing at the curb and replacing his sunglasses, Clint glanced at the cars as they drove by, looking for an opening large enough for him to dash across the road. That's when he noticed it; a face reflected off the windows of the passing vehicles, a figure standing behind a pillar near the entrance of Modessitt's building. Clint stared right at the watchers' reflection, but that feeling that always raised the hairs on the back of his neck and let him know he was being watched failed to materialise. It was as if his tail was invisible from the sixth sense that had helped to keep Clint alive.

A break in traffic was Clint's cue to cross the road, and acting naturally, he did so. Unlocking his car, he slid into the driver seat and took out his phone. Bringing up the phone's video application, Clint leaned his arm out of the window and faced forward. Tapping the phone against the side of the car as if he was thinking, Clint initiated the recording and started the car with his other hand. A glance from the corner of his eye barely showed the man behind the pillar, but it was enough to know that he was still there, and that his phone must have caught the guy. Turning off the recording application and chucking his phone onto the passenger seat, Clint pulled his car out of its driving space and drove off without looking back.

_**Avenger's Tower – Evening**_

They were all meeting in the operations room again; this time Natasha had stolen the end seat. She smirked at Clint as he mock-glared at her, taking the seat to her left. He rested a foot on the wheel of her chair and leaned back with his arms folded, watching the other members.

Steve had what could only be described as an extremely un-amused expression on his face. Whether or not Tony meant well, his little pranks were wearing on the old soldier. He wasn't in the frame of mind where he could enjoy them with good grace; they just made him feel more apart from the world, more of an anachronism. The man had gone from World War II, one of the darkest times of modern history, to the present day in just a few weeks. Forties' naivety or not, Steve Rogers had seen more darkness than anyone else here. Clint was beginning to the think he might have to have a talk with Tony.

Bruce Banner sat with his glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose, reading from a file. Periodically he would glance around at all of them. The way he watched people sometimes reminded Clint of a shrink; how much could the doctor read from just their body language? What secrets were they revealing without ever intending to? At least Clint felt sure the man wouldn't share any of his observations without very good reason. The uncomfortable feeling Clint got when Banner and Natasha smiled at each other didn't change the fact that he felt the doctor was a good guy. It just made Clint think things he had no right to think.

As always, the main event arrived minutes after he was meant to. Tony Stark strode in with a glass of bourbon, and without preamble brought up a screen. A page from a website displaying tweed coats materialised.

"Opinions, anyone?" He looked around. "These little meetings are beginning to make me feel like some under-paid college professor. I was thinking of changing my look. Pepper seems to think the brown would suit me." Clint glanced down at his arms as he tried to supress a smile. Natasha sighed in annoyance, but Clint caught the slight twitch at the corner of her mouth. When she noticed him watching, Natasha's smile became more full and she rolled her eyes at him. The exchange didn't go unnoticed by Steve.

"No one? No? Okay, well, back to work I guess." The screen changed to that of code. "These are the files Agent Barton picked up. JARVIS has cracked some of it. Dr Banner has pieced together the biology bits. So far it's mostly just the research they did, the location, nothing to state who is behind all of this or what they hope to achieve. However, JAVIS tells me that throughout the notes certain things begin to change. Whoever is making these notes- whether Modessitt or someone else- begins to use slightly different language. They become more laconic and precise; also more erratic. The order of equations and reports make no sense- the writer jumps from one section to the next.

"As for Agent Romanoff-" Natasha cut him off.

"The apartment I went to was trashed, with a substantial amount of blood in the bathroom. They took Agent Darragh, but he's likely dead, judging from the blood loss. There was nothing in the apartment of interest."

"I was just about to say that."

"I can speak for myself."

"But I take far more pleasure in speaking than you do." Natasha stared at Tony; he squirmed a bit, then glanced at Clint. "Barton! That video that you took of the man following you? Facial recognition found a match. Problem is, the man is supposed to have died three years ago." Clint muttered _dun dun DUN_ under his breath. Clint was the one who had run the recognition software. Tony just glared at him. "Thank you, Legolas. I see carnival theatrics are still a part of you." Clint smiled his deadly smile. Tony threw his hands into the air. "Look who I have to work with. All of you are just..!" His phone beeped suddenly. Glancing at the screen, Tony smiled suddenly. "Let's leave it here, shall we?" Without another glance, he left the room. Bruce turned to the rest of them.

"Any bets that was Pepper?"

_**Later that night**_

Clint stood outside Natasha's door. He had been standing there for several minutes; no doubt she knew he was there. She had pushed a little, earlier. Now it was his turn to push back. Clint knocked on the door.

The door opening a second later proved his theory correct, and she stood there in pyjama tank top and sweats, an expectant look on her face. When Clint's gaze flickered over her shoulder, she moved back to let him in. They both made their way over to her bed and sat down on the edge, side-by-side, knees touching. She was waiting for him to talk; she'd stay there all night if she had to, like he had done for her. He didn't want to wait all night though. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, the scent of vanilla and _Natasha_ assaulted him suddenly, and he forgot what he was there for. His eyes opened and he blurted out: "You smelt of vanilla yesterday." Natasha blinked at him, surprise in her eyes. "I mean, during the mission. You never smell during a mission." She blinked again. _Damnit, _he _wasn't_ fifteen.

"I had intended on going out for a bit, just before Stark called a meeting." Clint couldn't help himself.

"Going out?" For a moment, a very long moment, it seemed she wasn't going to reply. He risked a glance at her. The slight confusion on her face came through in her voice.

"An art exhibit down town; Rublev and Faberge. I've seen some of the pieces before, though never in a legal collection." Clint sighed minutely; a Russian art exhibit. A little surprising, but much better than what he had been thinking.

"I didn't think you were into that."

"I'm not, exactly. But I was bored, and it's good to keep on top of these things for cover stories." That made sense. She had had to play the role of Russian _nouveau Riche _often enough. "Clint?"

"How do you do it?" His voice was soft, almost a whisper. Natasha leaned closer, their thighs touching. "All my memories are getting screwed up. I feel like I'm losing hold of reality. I feel like I don't know what I'm _doing_ anymore." Clint was staring at his hands. "Normally, when my mind decides to have a little break down, I can retreat into myself and just sort of… _think_ it through. Detach myself and fit all the pieces together in a way that will let me continue on with things. This time, I feel like if I do that I won't come out again. My brother had always annoyed me." Natasha frowned slightly at the change in subject. Then she understood.

"You think you killed your brother deliberately?"

"He was wearing a balaclava at the time; I couldn't see his face when I shot him. But there was something about his body movement that I recognised and…"

"Clint, I don't think you'd kill your brother just because he annoyed you." Clint swallowed at that.

"That's how I used to think; these dreams are turning that all around. Not just that. Everything. I can't remember my motives anymore; just what mind-control Clint would have thought. Tasha, I can't _trust_ myself anymore." His voice broke slightly. His eyes were desperate as he looked at her.

"_I_ trust you."

"I almost killed you."

"Loki almost killed me."

"I was there; it was me."

"Clint…"

"Coulson sometimes annoyed me too."

"God, Clint, don't go there." Natasha sounded angry now. This was all _Loki's _fault; Coulson's death, Clint's self-doubt. It pissed her off that Clint was taking that blame on himself. But then she calmed herself. Clint was here, talking about it. Whatever guilt he was feeling, somewhere deep down he knew it wasn't his fault. He just wasn't sure if he had the right to believe that. Natasha reached up to brush a knuckle against the bandage at his temple. "How's the head?"

"It's fine." Clint frowned; was she changing the subject?

"I'm surprised you don't have a concussion."

"I'm not entirely sure I don't." Natasha smirked at that.

"I guess you're more than used to bumpsono the head." Clint felt himself relax. Banter he could do.

His body tensed again as the voice of JARVIS resounded through the room.

"Mr Stark requires the presence of Mr Barton and Miss Romanoff. He has said to…" the voice paused in seeming puzzlement, "Suit up."

Clint and Natasha glanced at each other and sighed.

**AN: ** I cannot write Tony… or dialogue. I'll just have to keep practicing. Thank you for reading, and for the reviews/alerts. The new cover image is not mine. Credit goes to its creator.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Five Days Prior – Compound Beta**_

It was going to be a long night.

They had flown the quinjet over Boston and continued south. The little aircraft was silent, everyone lost in their own thoughts. Clint was flying again, even though he had been teaching Rogers how to fly the craft. Natasha sat in the co-pilots chair, with Steve in the row of seats behind. Bruce was there too, his attention focused on the tablet on his lap; it looked like he was doing chemical equations. Tony had stayed behind at the lab, working with JARVIS to crack more of the e-mails and files they had found, while Bruce had wanted to come and see the situation for himself. Hopefully they wouldn't need the other guy.

Clint glanced at the instruments in front of him; they were almost on top of the co-ordinates Tony had given them. Looking out the window, he could see nothing but fields and patches of trees. There wasn't as much as a barn in sight. Natasha was obviously thinking the same thing.

"I don't see anything." She was double checking the readings as Steve came up behind her to look through the screen.

"Tony and I double-checked. It should be here somewhere," came Bruce's voice from the back. Clint continued to scan the landscape. _There. _A sliver of concrete. It was obvious the others hadn't seen it when they glanced at him as he began his descent. That little slice of concrete was the only thing visible up until the moment they landed. Covered in dirt and surrounded by bushes, a little hatch in the ground, little more than the width of Steve's shoulders. A tight fit.

"Guess they call you Hawkeye for a reason," muttered Steve as he moved to pick up his shield. Clint smirked at Natasha, who just rolled her eyes.

Steve was already standing over the hatch, looking for a way in. There were signs of a handle, but it had been broken off. There was nothing for him to get a grip on. Steve glanced up at the others and shrugged, then swung his shield in an arc above his head and smashed it down into the middle of the hatch. It buckled. Steve kept it up until the sheet of metal crumpled completely and dropped down a long shaft to land several seconds later in a muffled crash.

"Sounds deep." Even as she spoke, Natasha was moving back to the jet to pick up some rappelling gear. Jamming the anchor into the ground at her feet, she fed rope down into the hole until she felt some resistance. "Looks like it's about twenty metres down." Without further conversation, she clipped the rope anchor to her belt and jumped into the opening. Less than a minute later they heard her "all clear."

One by one, the rest of them rappelled down the line, landing with a slight dust cloud at the bottom of the shaft, where the space abruptly expanded into a cavernous room. Natasha was already working at the only door, a large metal contraption like something you'd find on a submarine. She was working at a little code pad at the side, its cover removed and her fingers deftly sorting through the little wires within. The door clicked open with a _hiss_. The air that wafted out was warm and stale.

They immediately entered a corridor, and with a motion of his head, Steve took Bruce down one way, while the two assassins went the other way. It was similar to the first compound they had entered, except everything here was at least ten years out of date. They entered offices with corded telephones and giant grey blocks we had once called computers, everything covered in a thick layer of dust. There was no need to say what they were both thinking; this place had been long abandoned.

They reached another branch in the corridor and went their separate ways. As Clint moved deeper into the building he began to notice a change in the air; it smelt cleaner, fresher. The dull yellow bulbs that had lit his way previously were replaced by bright fluorescent lights; the walls had a fresh coat of paint. Clint brought his hand up to his ear, meaning to inform Natasha and Steve that this part of the building had seen recent use, when he heard a light _thud_ behind him.

Clint turned just in time to throw himself to the side as a mountain of a man brought a fire extinguisher down where his head had been. Rolling backwards to regain his feet and some distance, the archer took everything in instantly. The guy must have been at least six and a half feet in height, as broad as he was tall. He reeked of fear sweat, and his eyes rolled in his head. The man grit his teeth as he panted, caught sight of Clint again, and lunged. He was fast for his mass, and the confines of the corridor made dodging difficult. Clint jumped back, and the man lost his balance as his lunge collided with air; Clint kneed him in the stomach, then drove his elbows into the middle of the man's back. He collapsed in a heap, whole body shuddering as he struggled for air. Crouching beside the man, Clint turned his head and watched with horror as the man's eyes glassed over and white spume dribbled from the corner of his mouth. The body continued to shudder.

Rising, Clint's mind raced. His counter attack should not have had that affect. He brought his hand up to his ear and pressed the comm.

"Widow, Captain." He received two affirmatives. "I'm in a part of the building that looks new. Encountered a guy that tried to bludgeon me. Something weird happened when I fought back, and the man seemed like he was out of it. Anything your en…?" The air was forced out of his lungs and he was sent stumbling over the corpse as something hard broke across his shoulders. He landed with his hand outstretched and used it to flip into a position that faced his attacker. A skinny man with his face frozen in a rictus of rage, a metal pipe in his hands. Clint removed a small knife from his boot and threw it, piercing the man's left eye. Another corpse.

Clint took a deep breath. He hadn't heard either man until they were upon him; not a scuffed step, not the rough pants of breath. Where did they come from? And why couldn't he hear their approach?

The sound of approaching footsteps, light and fast, reached his ears before he saw Natasha come around the corner. She paused beside him and raised a questioning eyebrow at the bodies. She had her gun in one hand, and a broken vial in the other. Drops of clear liquid rested on the sides of glass. Clint raised his own eyebrow at it, and their stared at each other in a challenge. Natasha eventually rolled her eyes, prioritising the mission.

"Found it in a sink in the women's bathroom. I thought we might test it." She waved her arm in a move that encompassed the corridor. "What happened?"

"Isn't it obvious? They attacked me. I can't figure out where they came from, though. One came from the direction you went, the other from further down this corridor. I didn't hear them at all." Natasha looked him over at that, but he just shook his head in puzzlement. "I could hear every breath they took after I noticed them, but not before. The guy there," he pointed to the larger of the two corpses. "He seemed to start choking on something and just died once I got him on the ground."

Natasha bent beside the two corpses. The smell of unwashed bodies pervaded the air, and their clothes looked long lived-in. Countless blood vessels had burst under their skin, giving them a strange mottled appearance. A quick pat-down of their bodies revealed nothing further. The two assassins continued their search. The next door opened into a storage room which appeared to have been inhabited by some kind of animal. The smell was vile, with blood and urine stains on the floor. It was only when they noticed a torch and back pack on the ground that they realised it was the den of a human; possibly one of those Clint had killed. The back pack was empty.

"Tash, feel like you're in a horror video game yet?" Natasha glanced over at him before moving on. She had never played a video game before, though she had taken to sitting in the room with him as he played feigning attention on her laptop. He never said it, but he had seen her start in her seat when he played F.E.A.R. Not that she would ever admit it; she said games were for children. So many things were for children. _Especially love._

Clint felt his eyes begin to sting suddenly; a low hiss came from the corner of the room, as of gas leaking. He caught Natasha's eye before the world went sideways.

_**AN: **_ I'm sorry this took so long to get written, and that it's so short. Life has been hectic. The pace so far has been slow, but it will start picking up now. Thank you for reading, and for reviewing/watching.


	7. Chapter 7

_Heat. Breathe heavy. Weight… weight on the shoulder, tear it off, rip it off- it's caught on your hand, tangling, snap the string, stomp on it, feel it break. Light to the left, white light and noise, so much noise, like a whine, grating your teeth, need to stop the noise, make noise, scream with your lungs, your own noise. Away from the white, towards the grey, shadows moving, coming for you, touching you, want your blood, take their blood, something sharp, attack the faces._

_More heat, on you now, dripping. Coppery taste. In your mouth, want it out of mouth, get it out, scream it ou-_

_Movement. There, in the white. Anger, pulsing red, turning everything red, except the movement, turn it red too, make it red. Lift something heavy, muscles straining, lift it and use it, bludgeon until red. The noise is back, drowning out your noise, making your head rattle and the floor slide, and pain, pain in the head, crushing, dying, need to live, red to live…_

The world slid into place again.

For a moment, Clint thought he was floating on a cloud of dust until he shifted and felt grit and stone dig into his already sore shoulders. It felt like the plaster dust was coating his lungs, clogging his nostrils. He huffed and coughed but it only stirred the cloud more. Everything had a haze of white, and that cringing whine was just on the edge of hearing. It took him a moment to realise someone was talking to him.

A halo of red materialised into Natasha, the low buzz of her voice becoming clearer. He was on the ground amidst a pile of debris. It looked like the Hulk had taken a sledge hammer to the room. Mind fogged, Clint looked around, listlessly noting a hand near his head- the rest of the body was buried. He tried to sit up, but the pain and nausea that arose was almost enough to knock him out; black specks coated his vision. He felt a hand on his chest, pushing him back down. It was then he tasted something metallic at the back of his throat.

Ignoring the pain and nausea, nearly mindless in his haste, Clint rolled over and retched. His stomach was empty, but he didn't care. He had lost control of himself again.

"Clint…" Natasha was beside him, her tone worried. She didn't touch him, didn't kneel too close. For that he was grateful; the last thing he wanted right now was someone in his space. He needed that space, it's assurance that he had some control, any, because he had lost it again, become some mindless thing, but this time it was worse, this time there was blood in his mouth and death in his ears and…

"Clint!" The bark of her voice froze his thoughts for just a moment, but that was all he needed to lock them away, focus on that black dot amidst the grey. Slowly, staggering slightly, Clint got to his feet and looked at her. Then he looked around him.

They were in what looked like a small lab. The wall to his right had been knocked down; it was the source of all the plaster dust. The Captain stood nearby, watching him warily. His shield was coated in white, and he was breathing a little heavier than normal. Clint ignored his questioning look, focused instead on the bodies. It was hard to tell how many, but at least a dozen. They had all died in poses of rage, their torn faces forever frozen in snarls. Vague images flashed through his mind, of his hands attacking those bodies while they still lived, but the memory was very disconnected. It was as if he had simply been watching from behind someone else's eyes.

Clint eventually had the presence of mind to wonder where Banner was, before he noticed the man crouched over a valve in the adjoining room. Concentrating on keeping his gait steady, the archer walked over the debris, plaster cracking underfoot, and inspected the broken wall, glancing at Bruce as he did so. The wooden supports had splintered, but there hadn't been any pipes in the wall to complicate matters.

"You turned off whatever that was?" His voice was dry, and he coughed; it felt like the dust was cracking on his tongue and entering his lungs. Banner tapped the valve with a pen.

"This was releasing an air-borne toxin. I'm not sure yet, but it's either the compound they have been experimenting with, or something very like it."

"I returned to normal." Banner stood up and looked him over. There was sympathy in his eyes; he knew what it was like to lose control on a regular basis. Clint looked away; he always found it hard to look straight at the man. It made the righteous anger he felt towards Loki feel cheap; Clint needed the hate to accept what he had done. Something about Banner made him feel guilty about that.

"We don't know yet how they administer this new X- serum of theirs. Likely it's by injection over a period of time, or as a transfusion. It might be that the compound you inhaled works in a limited manner."

"What about you, Tash? You were right beside me." Natasha simply shrugged, looking away dismissively. Clint took the hint; they administered various substances, as well as training, in the Red Room. Perhaps that had something to do with her apparent immunity, but either way she wouldn't want to discuss it here. The Avengers team had earned enough trust to watch her back, but her past was still private. Clint himself only knew parts of it. He had been given a dossier on the Black Widow when he had been sent to assassinate her; it had mentioned her training at the rarely-known espionage school in Russia. His time in the underworld had enlightened him as to some of what had gone on there; Natasha waking at night mumbling in Russian had shed light on other areas. But very little of what he knew had come from her own lips; they did their best to live in the now. The past had gotten them to where they are. It wouldn't help with their jobs or their mental state, and was better left shoved aside, under the bodies and lies that had led them here. Voicing memories out loud brought out a vividness that was hard to forget again.

"We'll check the both of you out when we get back. In the meantime, Clint, if you start feeling weird…" Banner looked him over and hurriedly amended; the man looked dead on his feet, coated in dust and blood. "…Any weirder, let us know."

"Right." Clint sighed. He would deal with the mental aftermath later. "Did you guys find anything?"

"Other than Natasha's vial and your corpses, Steve found some data discs that had been left soaking in a sink; even if we can get something off of them they're likely encrypted, but we'll leave that to Tony. I have some blood samples. One of the computers had drops of blood on it. Maybe we'll get some good DNA and a hit in a database, and finally put a face and name to some of these people."

The Captain shifted his shield onto his forearm. "Let's finish searching, then get you guys checked out."

_**Several Hours Later**_

Clint's eyelid twitched as the needle went into his vein. It was an involuntary action, but he turned his head slightly so Natasha wouldn't see. He cringed internally at the action. What was he, fifteen and not wanting to look weak in front of a girl? He was sitting on a bed in the tower's medical bay, Natasha standing at his side like a little guard dog. Her body language was very protective; it made Clint feel good. Banner kept glancing between the two of them, but he remained professional.

"You can lie back on the bed now." Clint was about to say he didn't need to when Natasha shot him a killer look. Clint flipped his legs up onto the bed and lay back; his head pounded worse on the descent. Since arriving back the two assassins had been through a battery of tests; blood tests, lung tests, even an MRI. Rogers had had to knock Clint on the head with his shield to stop him; in all likelihood he had a concussion. Hence the fluid drip and lying down; Bruce wanted to keep him monitored. He smirked slightly when Natasha pulled up a chair to stay beside him.

_**AN:**_ Thank you for reading/reviewing!


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